xvi, 256 pages : 22 cm

In Seize the Daylight, David Prerau weaves a tale of science, history, and politics - a story grand enough to involve luminaries such as Ben Franklin, Winston Churchill, and FDR, but personal enough to revolve around railroad conductors and schoolchildren waiting at bus stops on dark mornings - all about the simple act of setting the clock forward an hour in the spring and back an hour in the fall. Who knew that daylight saving time influences everything from movie attendance to street crime, voter turnout to traffic accidents, Halloween trick-or-treaters to death-row inmates? That it has foiled Mideast terrorist plots and saved young men from being drafted into war? That it took a "celebrity endorsement" from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and a Supreme Court decision to make it an actuality? That three U.S. states still refuse to employ it? Seize the Daylight is the story behind an institution that has been the subject of back-room brawling and front-page headlines for more than two hundred years - and remains so today

Includes bibliographical references pages (225-233) and index

Introduction -- The waste of daylight -- From sun time to standard time -- The first time -- America takes its time -- An hour of peace -- War time -- Clock chaos -- Daylight for oil -- Modern times

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